Peanut Butter Cup Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt and Nuts
Peanut Butter Cup Chocolate Chip Cookies are thick, chewy, super-chunky and loaded with rich peanut butter and chocolate flavor. They are outrageously delicious with great texture from lots of nuts and sea salt flakes as well!
Servings: 30 cookies
Ingredients
- 1½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1¼ cups peanut butter
- ¾ cup softened butter at room temperature (1½ sticks)
- ⅔ cup packed brown sugar
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup miniature chocolate peanut butter cups or chopped peanut butter cups (about 6 ounces)
- 1 cup semi-sweet, dark, or milk chocolate chips or chunks (about 6 ounces)
- 1-1¼ cups nuts (See Note below.)
- Flaky sea salt such as Maldon salt or any sea salt flakes or fleur de sel coarse salt
Instructions
- Prep and gather all ingredients.
- Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl and set aside.1½ cups all-purpose flour, 1 tsp baking soda, ¼ tsp salt
- Then, combine the peanut butter, butter, brown and regular sugars and vanilla extract in a large mixing bowl and blend with either a hand mixer or in a stand mixer using the paddle attachment until well combined and creamy.1¼ cups peanut butter, ¾ cup softened butter, ⅔ cup packed brown sugar, ⅓ cup sugar, 2 tsp vanilla extract
- Add the eggs and continue to beat. Then, gradually add the dry ingredients (flour mixture), a little at a time, and beat until the mixture is well-combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, as needed.2 large eggs
- Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and fold in the peanut butter cups, chocolate chips and nuts using a large rubber spatula. Make sure that all of the bits are well-incorporated into the batter.1 cup miniature chocolate peanut butter cups , 1 cup semi-sweet, dark, or milk chocolate chips , 1-1¼ cups nuts
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate the cookie dough for 12-24 hours. (Note: You can portion out the cookies before chilling the dough if you prefer, as cold cookie dough can be hard to scoop. I often will break off pieces of the cold dough with my hands, which is easier, since I am okay with different-sized cookies, but realize that you may have a different preference.)
- When ready to bake, place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 350℉.
- Using a portion scoop or your hands, measure out about 2-3 Tbsp of the cookie dough at a time and drop it onto an ungreased cookie sheet or sheet pan. (You can make the cookies as small or large as you want.) Press down on the dough pieces slightly to flatten them a bit. Space out the dough pieces about 1” apart from each other.
- Sprinkle sea salt flakes over each piece of cookie dough. Then, bake the cookies for about 12 minutes or until they are golden brown. (Work in batches, if necessary, one sheet pan at a time. Once one sheet is ready, place it in the oven while scooping out and preparing the next batch.)Flaky sea salt
- Once the cookies are done, remove them from the oven and let them cool on the sheet pan for 2 to 3 minutes until they firm up a bit. (They will be quite soft upon removing them from the oven.) Then, transfer them to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
- Once cooled, store cookies in a cookie tin. They will stay fresh for about one week at room temperature, if they are around that long!
Video
Notes
- Either salted or unsalted butter can be used.
- Use a “clean” peanut butter in this recipe–one that does not have sugar or oils added to it. The ingredients should just be “peanut butter” or “peanut butter and salt”. Either creamy or chunky works, but creamy is slightly preferred because there are so many other chunky elements in the recipe.
- If I am lucky enough to have some hazelnut extract on hand, I will replace half the vanilla extract with it. It increases the overall nutty flavor of the cookie in a subtle way.
- The yield is approximate as it depends on how large or small you make your cookies.
- I used butter toffee cashews in this recipe, but the beauty of it is that you can change up the flavor easily by using a different nut. I have also made this recipe with honey-roasted almonds, salted roasted peanuts and plain walnuts in and all were great. Also, I keep the size of the nuts fairly chunky. Instead of pulsing them in a food processor to chop into very small pieces, I just carefully rough chop them on a cutting board, which leaves some larger pieces, some medium-sized and smaller pieces and some nut dust. It works well.
- Use a cookie scoop to measure out even sized pieces of dough, if you desire.
- Store cooled cookies at room temperature for up to one week. I generally store my cookies in tins and not plastic as I feel they hold their crispiness better and will not become as soft as if they were stored in plastic containers.
